Bruno La Verdiere with works in progress and “Lake Shore Guardian,” left, solid stoneware to to 9 inches thick, stained black. His story about the major influences he encountered on the path from a monastery to his own private studio begins on page 22.

Salt-glazed jar, 11.5 inches in height, wheel-thrown and paddled stoneware, partially coated with white slip, by Warren MacKenzie. Since the early 1950s, Mac Kenzie has responded to the “essential need for functional pots at affordable prices.”

Brook Le Van at the Omaha Brick Works, where he purchases pallets of freshly extruded pavers for constructing sculpture. “Instead of using a lump of raw clay, assigning a particular meaning to it and then building something, I start with a brick, an object that can metaphorically represent something, like ‘shelter'”.